FiveAcross on NHL

Recently, I did a piece about Cisco’s acquisitions of FiveAcross and its business implication. I promised to do another one detailing how FiveAcross’s Connect Community Builder adds social networking capabilities to sites like NHL.com from a user point of view.

I created my NHL Connect personal page and instantly, it made me feel like a part of the fan community. Bear in mind that my only hockey knowledge is the great Wayne Gretzky and the Sharks. When the browser is in the “NHL Connect View”, the left panel carries a MSN-messenger-like portal that contains a collection of standard social networking tools, such as RSS, blog, message board, video streaming and etc. My favorite feature is the video sharing because nothing says how good your favorite hockey player is than a video of a few between-the-legs maneuvers and some great goals.

What I like the most about NHL Connect is the simplicity of the look-and-feel and ease of use. Although, it took me a while to figure out how to embed video streams. These seemingly straightforward tasks (for someone who is savvy with social networking sites) might come as a challenge for a regular hockey fan. And these are exactly the cool features that separate fans.nhl.com from a regular NHL forum.

Going back to Cisco’s strategy with FiveAcross. Cisco is identifying consumers’ demand for social networking capabilities on enterprise websites, and is expecting enterprises to embrace it like other consumer tools such as instant messaging.

As Cisco moves into this new market, it faces possible future competitors like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, which either own social-networking sites or offer tools to help build social networking into Web sites. So far, these companies have focused on allowing people to add social-networking features to their personal blogs and Web sites instead of developing a comprehensive solution for large enterprises. Cisco is smart to stay with its familiar territory of large enterprises while moving into the consumer market.

As an end note, other than NHL.com, FiveAcross’s client roster also includes DailyComedy.com and Alloy.com. Its competitors are the likes of BroadbandMechanics.com.

April 10, 2007 · Filed Under MObilenoDE Mobility

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Yupoo Supports OpenID, China Internet Updated

Yupoo, one of the most popular Chinese photo-sharing sites recently made an announcement and became the first Chinese web embracing the OpenID.

Even though I am not sure how much impact it can bring on the Chinese Internet, I would say it is an unusual and exciting news. I was watching a videoclip in which a quite famous Chinese Internet veteran gave a speech in an International Internet Forum talking about the web2.0 and SNS. I do respect him but I have to say his understanding and comments on the trend of Internet is too superficial. (Well, I know in his eyes, I might just be a startup).

Let’s say we have two different views of Internet, Macro Internet and Micro Internet. Micro Internet here means the individual (web2.0) site. The copycat is still the symptom of Chinese web (btw, the target of the new round of copying is the Twitter.com), but there is no doubt that more and more young entrepreneurs now truly understand the SNS, the Blogosphere, the Wiki, the RSS Syndication etc. You can find some of them are very creative and also brave, and some start with copycats but soon they will walk on their own ways. What is the Macro Internet? Semantic web, OpenID, Microformat, Widgetization etc these are the technology/ideas will improve the Internet’s efficiency, authority, security etc and eventually change the way of communicating with the web. In China, not many people is aware of it, few of them is talking about it. Yupoo took the first action, which is Cool.

My definitions of Macro and Micro Internet are not mature at all, so feel free criticize it. What is the next update after OpenID then? Shall we say Content Label which is my friend, Sam, editor of Vecosys passionate about, maybe?